The Comb

The Comb is a 17-minute-long stop-motion animation short subject

Short subject

A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...

 directed

Film director

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

 and produced

Film producer

A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...

 by the Brothers Quay

Brothers Quay

Stephen and Timothy Quay are American identical twin brothers better known as the Brothers Quay or Quay Brothers. They are influential stop-motion animators...

. It is featured in both color and black and white and was released in 1990

It was produced by Keith Griffiths

Keith Griffiths

Keith Griffiths is a former English professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper.Griffiths began his playing career with Rhyl before joining hometown club Chester in the summer of 1955 along with John Devine...

 with Koninck Studios and had music by Leszek Jankowski. It starred Joy Constantinides who played the role of the Sleeping Woman and Witold Schejbal who did the voices.

Plot

The film opens up to a black and white scene that quickly changes focus from a package, to a comb, to a vanity, then to a woman lying in a bed. It then quickly switches to color, focusing on an oddly colorful landscape and begins to pull away. The scene focuses back in on the colorful landscape, revealing a forest and a doll who is slowly moving a ladder back and forth. The doll suddenly stops and its hands come off, still clutching the ladder. The hands then carry the ladder off. Very quickly a multitude of ladders begin to appear and the scene focuses on a doll lying in bed before switching back to black and white. The film begins to switch back and forth between black and white and color, focusing on a dolls finger movement (in color) and the woman’s (in black and white).

It then switches back to color and the original ladder makes its way back to the first doll. The doll begins to observe the ceiling above him before picking a place for his ladder. The scenes begin to change again from color to black and white. Observing moments of the doll and the woman and how ones actions influence the other. The doll then falls slack for a second time and the hands climb the ladder. They soon return back down to their owner and attach again. The doll begins to climb up the ladder but soon starts to fall as it becomes unhinged. Switching back to black and white, the woman begins to get up from her bed. She reaches for the comb that was shown in the beginning and begins to brush her hair, but quickly stops to play with the bristles of the comb. The scene focuses on her lips pulling into a smile, then fading to black.

Themes

This particular film uses a variety of items, mainly ladders, to add to its overall effect.

Release Details

The Comb has been released in four different countries. It was released first in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 on October 11th, 1991. A few months later in Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

 in February of 1992. In France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 on February 23rd, 2000, and in the Czech Republic

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

 on December 12th, 2004.

It is available on the Quay Brothers: The Short Films 1979-2003 DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....